


Done With Screaming

by herbailiwick



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Character Death, M/M, POV First Person, Suicidal Thoughts, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>thewhitefool prompted: "Sherlock is dying from an illness. Slowly. Lestrade can only watch and is desperate."</p><p>Greg has to watch Sherlock's health decline, but Mycroft watches it too, which pisses Greg off.</p><p>Rated PG-13 for language. </p><p><strong>Warnings:</strong> character death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Done With Screaming

I want to scream. And that's how I know I'm having a _good_ day.

A good day's one where I bark orders out like I once would never have dreamed. None of them did a fucking thing. No one did. And no one _can_ do a fucking thing, least of all me.

All I can do is bark at people and jump to conclusions. I've been threatened with the idea of having to take a break. The most important person in the world is lyin' in a bed with no room for me, and they want me to take it easy.

And Mycroft. Mycroft's in the room too often, sitting like a fixture, like he's got more rights than I do (cause he does, legally). And he gives me that look that means he pities me, and my fist just wants to wring his neck, just for a second.

I'll admit, I was too positive about this before. I had all this hope, wore it like the lining of my jacket, protected by the thought he'd get better. Watched him snap and snarl like always, a force of nature disease couldn't touch.

I know different now. I know better now, watching his brother sit perched like a vulture, waiting for a death, waiting to pick away at everything that's left.

Sherlock should be mine.

It's a good day, when I want to scream. On the bad days, screaming doesn't even cross my mind. All I can see is his too-pale face, the pain that mangles his expression into something truly ugly, despite how lovely he is. The sound of his whimpers that plays like a horror film soundtrack in my head, but in slow-mo, like it'll never end.

Sally barely talks to me. I don't blame her. Sherlock would, if he was at the top of his game. He loved to blame her.

I'm the reason I'm falling apart, though. And there's no reason to the way he's falling apart.

***

Mycroft Holmes stops me in the hallway. I'm not having it. 

He says he's looking out for my best interests.

"Course you are, you sod; all you do is sit there and watch him. All you do is look at him. But he's my best interest now, okay? He chose me!" I yell, and people are staring at me because I've become a public disgrace 24/7. I feel the stares, but they're almost a comfort now.

And my Sherlock's daft big brother just says, "I'm sorry you feel that way," with tears in his eyes he's probably faking. Fuck him, is all I can think. Just, fuck him, just, no one needs this shit. So I push past him, but his little assistant is there, and she gets into a defensive stance and looks at me with fire in her eyes.

She glances at her boss, then back at me. I don't understand why. I don't care why. "Fuck you too, sweetheart," I say, and when she narrows her eyes, I raise my hand because I'm that far gone, and I pull it back, only to stand there like some stupid statue, like some heartless man made of useless tin who's rusted over.

In his most quiet voice, he invites me to dinner, all while I'm still standing there with my hand raised, all while she's forging steel with the fire in her eyes. 

"I'm not going anywhere with you," I retort, whirling around, letting my hand return to my side. I don't realize how close he's come up behind me, though, so, in a moment of fright, I punch him across the face.

Shocked and angry hospital workers start to come toward me, but the insistence of his PA and his own frail waving off of them seem to keep them at bay.

"Fuck you," I say. "I'm gonna go see him."

Sherlock's in more pain than usual when I settle into Mycroft's usual place. He's crying, he's shaking a bit and looking too...resigned, and I hold his hand as he drifts off, wishing he'll go on fighting, wishing he won't. Only when he's finally asleep do I allow myself to cry about it too. I know it hurts him to see how he hurts others. He's got such a big heart, really, but it's gonna die like the rest of him. It's mine, cause he gave it to me, but neither of us can help that it's going to go away too damn soon.

***

A day comes when Mycroft pulls me out of work like he knows best and rushes me to the hospital in one of his impersonal black cars. The punch I'd given him gives his eye a nice bruise that almost allows me some small amount of comfort for what I'm about to face, for who I'm forced to sit near already. He's proper and mannered as ever, and what's worse doesn't seem to hold the punch against me, even though he's clearly sitting so it's facing me, like a reminder.

I'll probably need to punch him again sometime, that means. Pompous fucking prick.

I don't want to go in at first, despite how many times I've entered the room before. I was frozen to the spot. Gentle fingertips at my shoulder, a condescending comfort, disgusts me enough that I pull away from Mycroft and charge into the room. I perch in his usual spot like I awkwardly belong there when I know I don't, forcing him to take the other chair. I don't begrudge him his brother's last moments, though I still feel possessive; always do when it comes to Mycroft and his superior ability to possess. 

We each hold a clammy hand. We both hear Sherlock's last struggles to communicate his affection. We both cry like fools. We both feel him slip away at the same moment in time. Then, as I start to sob, I realize we're side by side without the reason for it, and I hate him all over again.

I don't want to punch him, though, I decide. I don't want to scream at him, I decide. I don't want to scream at Sherlock's dead body, at a nurse, don't want to scream at all.

Mycroft Holmes looks at me and decides the same things, sees them, using his psychic mind powers to pull it out of fucking nowhere.

With a grip on my shoulder firm enough I don't immediately jerk away like last time, he tells me we're going out to eat. He says I can have a few minutes alone with Sherlock, but then he's gonna take me out to eat. He's acting like I can't fucking control myself or something, like if he doesn't step in I'll just go home and fire one into my head, like that's what I'm planning to do, like him being sure of it makes it a certain thing. I once again truly hate how alike these Holmeses...not are, were.

I want to follow him out of the room and start screaming, or at least protest in a fucking whisper. I want to let him know in no uncertain terms that he's a self-righteous prick with no boundaries, the lowest government official I've ever met (and that isn't even true), and that I wouldn't go anywhere with him even if he needed my support cause his leg had been shot. 

But all I'm capable of accomplishing is sitting like a nice little boy with the dead hand in my hand as the staff buzz about and make my nightmare official. All I'm capable of is sobbing about it, sniffling, making my eyes red and my throat feel sore.

The fucking nerve of him, offering yet more of his peculiar brand of "kindness". I toss his handkerchief to the floor and stomp it into the tiles, taking his poor, dead brother's out of my pocket instead, soiled as it is. Even soiled, it's so much better.

"I'd rather take the bullet than spend any more time with you," I say, loathing the way he seems to crumble under my gaze. He's made of steel and lies and sociopathy. He's not a crumbler; that's my job. 

"I can't allow you to do that," he says like it's an apology, but if it truly is, he's got about four thousand more to go.

And they take me away from Sherlock's bedside to a place where I'm on suicide watch, because Mycroft Holmes with his ever-watchful bruised eye doesn't give a shit about anything but what he thinks is right.


End file.
